Alphabet (GOOG) Stock Today: Buffett’s $4.3 Billion Bet, Gemini 3 “Hit” and a New $3.6 Trillion Milestone (Nov. 22, 2025)

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) heads into the weekend sitting near all‑time highs after a frenetic stretch of AI announcements, massive infrastructure spending plans, and a rare endorsement from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. As of Friday’s close (Nov. 21), Alphabet’s Class C shares finished around $299.65, up roughly 3.3% on the day, with after‑hours trading on Saturday showing prices edging above $302. ^[1]

The rally has pushed Alphabet’s market value to roughly $3.5–$3.6 trillion, briefly overtaking Microsoft in market capitalization for the first time since 2018 and placing Google’s parent behind only Apple and Nvidia in the U.S. market‑cap league table. ^[2]

Below is a detailed look at what’s moving Alphabet (GOOG) stock as of November 22, 2025, along with a digest of today’s key headlines investors are watching.

1. Alphabet (GOOG) at a Glance – Price, Market Cap and Momentum

• Last regular close (Nov. 21, 2025): $299.65, up 3.33% on the day, with intraday highs near $304 and heavy volume above 43 million shares. ^[3]
• After‑hours snapshot (Nov. 22, ~8 p.m. ET): Around $302.40, up roughly 0.9% from Friday’s close. ^[4]
• Market capitalization: Approximately $3.5–$3.6 trillion, with some datasets citing about $3.62 trillion at Friday’s close. ^[5]
• Year‑to‑date performance: Various estimates now put Alphabet’s 2025 gain in the 50–60% range, making it one of the best‑performing members of the “Magnificent Seven.” ^[6]

The combination of AI optimism, resilient ad and cloud growth, and a high‑profile Berkshire stake has turned Alphabet into one of 2025’s standout mega‑cap winners.

2. Today’s Biggest Alphabet (GOOG) Headlines – November 22, 2025

A wave of fresh stories hit the tape today that directly or indirectly affect the investment narrative around Alphabet:

1. Motley Fool / Nasdaq: “Alphabet Stock Has Surged Since Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Bought a Stake… Is It Too Late to Buy?”
   • Highlights the stock’s powerful 2025 rally and argues that, despite the big move, Alphabet’s valuation still looks reasonable relative to its growth profile. ^[7]
2. Times of India: Buffett’s $4.3 Billion Alphabet Stake Seen as an AI‑Chip Statement
   • Frames Berkshire’s newly disclosed Alphabet position (around $4.3–$4.9 billion based on recent filings) as a vote of confidence in Google’s custom AI chips (TPUs), particularly the new Ironwood generation, and in its vertically integrated AI stack. ^[8]
3. CoinCentral: “Alphabet Stock: Google Tops Microsoft in Market Cap for First Time Since 2018”
   • Reports that Alphabet’s market value hit roughly $3.62 trillion, surpassing Microsoft’s ~$3.51 trillion and marking the first Alphabet‑over‑Microsoft finish since 2018. ^[9]
4. Meyka: “GOOG News Today, Nov 22: Alphabet Stock Soars with 75% Volume Increase”
   • Notes that recent trading in Alphabet saw volume spike about 75% versus typical levels, as the stock surged on AI‑driven enthusiasm and macro tailwinds. ^[10]
5. MarketBeat: Institutional Investors Reposition Around GOOG
   • Evelyn Partners Investment Management boosted its Alphabet stake by over 2,800% in Q2 to about 183,000 shares (~$32.5 million). ^[11]
   • AlphaCore Capital nearly doubled its position, and Segall Bryant & Hamill and SFE Investment Counsel disclosed fresh or larger stakes in Alphabet stock. ^[12]
   • At the same time, firms like Del Sette Capital Management, New World Advisors and Stevens Capital reported trimming or selling portions of their GOOG holdings, locking in profits after the rally. ^[13]
6. Insider Transactions: CEO Sundar Pichai’s $9.6 Million Share Sale
   • Regulatory filings show Pichai sold 32,500 Alphabet shares on Nov. 19 at an average price near $296.64, totaling about $9.64 million. The sale was carried out under a pre‑planned 10b5‑1 trading plan, and he still directly holds more than 2.3 million shares (worth over $680 million at recent prices). ^[14]
   • MarketBeat notes that, over the past three months, Alphabet insiders have sold roughly 228,000 shares worth close to $59 million, even as institutional investors have been net buyers. ^[15]
7. Seeking Alpha: “SA Asks – Can Amazon’s Zoox Catch Up to Alphabet’s Waymo?”
   • A round‑table style piece debates whether Amazon’s self‑driving unit Zoox can close the gap with Alphabet’s Waymo in the robotaxi market, underscoring that Alphabet’s growth story extends beyond ads and cloud into autonomous vehicles. ^[16]
8. 24/7 Wall St.: “These Are the 3 Biggest Stocks in Alphabet’s Secret Portfolio”
   • Breaks down Alphabet’s venture‑style stakes via GV and CapitalG in public names like AST SpaceMobile, Planet Labs and Arm Holdings, framing them as satellite plays that support Google’s ecosystem in connectivity, geospatial data and AI hardware. ^[17]
9. Security Angle: Report on a Gainsight‑Linked Supply‑Chain Breach
   • A cybersecurity outlet reports that Google has confirmed more than 200 companies were affected in a supply‑chain hack involving Gainsight‑related infrastructure, highlighting ongoing security risks that large cloud platforms must manage. Details are still emerging, and there’s no clear indication yet of a material financial impact on Alphabet. ^[18]
10. Commentary and TV Personalities
    • A variety of pundit pieces today – from Jim Cramer‑focused write‑ups to Buffett‑stock round‑ups – continue to highlight Alphabet as one of the core AI and “Buffett trade” names to watch heading into year‑end. ^[19]

3. Why GOOG Is Surging: Buffett, Gemini 3 and the AI Build‑Out

3.1 Berkshire’s New Alphabet Stake

Berkshire Hathaway’s Q3 13F filing revealed a new position of about 17.9 million Alphabet shares, worth approximately $4.3–$5 billion at recent prices, making it one of Berkshire’s larger U.S. equity holdings. ^[20]

For a conglomerate traditionally cautious on high‑growth tech names, this is being interpreted as:

• An endorsement of Alphabet’s AI and cloud strategy, especially its huge spending on data centers and custom AI chips. ^[21]
• A signal that Alphabet has matured into the type of cash‑generating, wide‑moat business that fits Buffett’s long‑term playbook.

The Times of India goes further, framing the stake as a direct challenge to Nvidia’s lead in AI hardware, given Alphabet’s push with its Ironwood TPUs and its control over the full AI stack. ^[22]

3.2 Gemini 3: From AI Punchline to AI “Hit”

Alphabet’s recent Gemini 3 launch has reshaped investor sentiment:

• Times of India reports that Alphabet shares hit an all‑time high this week after “overwhelmingly positive reviews” for Gemini 3, with the stock jumping as much as 6.9% in a single session, its biggest one‑day gain in two months. ^[23]
• Bloomberg and other analysts quoted in coverage describe Gemini 3 as potentially “what GPT‑5 was supposed to be,” contrasting its reception with the more mixed response to OpenAI’s latest model. ^[24]
• A Moneycontrol photo feature emphasizes that Gemini 3’s debut brought record highs, heavy call‑option activity and strong analyst upgrades, with Loop Capital moving Alphabet to a “buy” rating on the back of AI momentum. ^[25]

Add in some viral moments – such as CEO Sundar Pichai’s now‑famous AI‑generated cheeseburger tweet, positioned by some tech media as a playful flex about how far Google’s models have come since early Bard missteps – and you get a narrative that Google has reclaimed leadership in consumer‑facing AI. ^[26]

3.3 Ironwood TPUs and the AI Infrastructure Race

Alphabet’s AI story is increasingly about custom silicon and infrastructure, not just models:

• On November 7, Google Cloud announced general availability of Ironwood, its seventh‑generation Tensor Processing Unit, along with new Arm‑based Axion VMs. Ironwood is pitched as delivering up to 10x peak performance vs. TPU v5p and over 4x better performance per chip vs. TPU v6e, targeting both large‑scale training and high‑volume inference. ^[27]
• The same blog post highlights early enthusiasm from AI players like Anthropic, which plans to access up to 1 million TPUs, reinforcing Alphabet’s ambitions to be a leading AI infrastructure provider, not just a model developer. ^[28]

This hardware push is tightly linked to Gemini and to Google Cloud’s growth, and it’s a key reason why Buffett’s stake is widely viewed as more than just a generic bet on “Big Tech.” ^[29]

4. Fundamentals: A $100 Billion Quarter and Aggressive Capex

Alphabet’s Q3 2025 earnings, released on Oct. 29, underpin the stock’s rally:

• Revenue: $102.3 billion, up 16% year‑over‑year (15% in constant currency), marking Alphabet’s first‑ever $100 billion quarter. ^[30]
• Segment performance:
  • Google Services revenue (Search, YouTube, subscriptions, devices) up 14% to $87.1 billion. ^[31]
  • Google Cloud revenue up 34% to $15.2 billion, with AI infrastructure and generative AI solutions cited as key drivers. ^[32]
• Profitability: Net income jumped 33% to about $35 billion, EPS rose 35% to $2.87, and free cash flow reached about $24.5 billion for the quarter and $73.6 billion over the last 12 months. ^[33]
• Capex guidance: Management now expects 2025 capital expenditures of $91–$93 billion, largely for AI‑focused technical infrastructure. ^[34]

CEO Sundar Pichai described it as a “terrific quarter” and stressed that AI is now “driving real business results” across Search, YouTube, Cloud and subscriptions, with Gemini processing about 7 billion tokens per minute and the Gemini app surpassing 650 million monthly active users. ^[35]

From a valuation standpoint, different data providers put Alphabet’s trailing P/E in the mid‑20s to high‑20s, depending on the exact earnings metric used. A recent Motley Fool analysis, for instance, cites a P/E around 28, arguing that’s reasonable given double‑digit revenue and earnings growth plus massive free‑cash‑flow generation. ^[36]

5. Massive AI Capex: Data Centers in Texas and Germany, Wiz Deal

Investors watching GOOG today are also digesting Alphabet’s escalating AI capex cycle:

• $40 billion in Texas data centers (through 2027): Google plans three new data centers in Texas (Armstrong County and Haskell County, plus additional investment in Midlothian and the Dallas cloud region), explicitly framed as a push to expand capacity for AI workloads. ^[37]
• €5.5 billion (~$6.4 billion) in Germany: Earlier this month, Google said it will spend around €5.5 billion over the coming years to expand cloud and data‑center capacity in Germany, including a new facility near Frankfurt. ^[38]
• $32 billion Wiz acquisition moving forward: The planned purchase of cybersecurity firm Wiz cleared a key U.S. Department of Justice antitrust review, paving the way for what would be Alphabet’s largest acquisition, now expected to close in 2026 pending other regulatory approvals. Wiz will be folded into Google Cloud to bolster security offerings. ^[39]

Together, these moves reinforce a simple theme: Alphabet is spending tens of billions of dollars to own more of the AI stack – chips, data centers, cloud software and security. That’s bullish for long‑term positioning, but it also raises questions about capital intensity and returns on invested capital if AI revenues don’t ramp as quickly as hoped.

6. Regulatory and Legal Overhangs

Despite the euphoric price action, today’s GOOG story is not risk‑free.

6.1 EU Antitrust Damages

A recent European ruling ordered Google to pay about €573 million (roughly $666 million) in damages to two German price‑comparison platforms, Idealo and Producto, tied to a longstanding EU antitrust case over its shopping search practices. Google plans to appeal but welcomed the court’s dismissal of many other claims. ^[40]

6.2 U.S. Ad‑Tech Monopoly Case

In the U.S., closing arguments just wrapped in a major ad‑tech antitrust case:

• A federal judge previously found parts of Google’s ad‑tech stack to be an illegal monopoly, and is now weighing remedies after additional proceedings this fall. ^[41]
• The U.S. Department of Justice has argued for a breakup of parts of Google’s ad tech business, while Google counters that forced divestitures could disrupt a system handling tens of millions of ad requests per second. ^[42]

This comes on top of an earlier search‑monopoly case, where Google avoided a structural breakup but was ordered to share some search data with rivals. That more limited remedy was widely seen as a “slap on the wrist” and is one reason Alphabet’s market value surged by hundreds of billions since early September. ^[43]

6.3 AI Bubble Jitters

Even Pichai himself has acknowledged systemic risk: in a recent BBC interview, he warned that no firm is immune if an AI bubble bursts, even as Alphabet’s shares are up about 40–50% this year on AI excitement and regulatory relief. ^[44]

For GOOG investors, that means today’s lofty valuation is intertwined with AI sentiment and policy risk in a way that’s difficult to model.

7. Flows and Sentiment: Institutions Buying, Insiders Trimming

Today’s news flow paints a nuanced picture:

• Institutional demand: Big asset managers like Vanguard, JPMorgan, Sanders Capital, Evelyn Partners, AlphaCore and Segall Bryant & Hamill have all increased Alphabet positions, in some cases dramatically, reinforcing the view that GOOG remains a core institutional holding in large‑cap growth and AI‑themed portfolios. ^[45]
• Insider selling: At the same time, Pichai and other insiders have sold into strength via Rule 10b5‑1 plans. While these sales represent a small fraction of their holdings, they’re a reminder that management is diversifying personal wealth after a huge run‑up. ^[46]

Sentiment pieces today are split:

• Some analysts argue Alphabet is still “underestimated” given its AI moat across Search, YouTube, Cloud and Waymo. ^[47]
• Others warn that after such a big move and with capex and regulatory pressures building, upside may be more limited from here, prompting at least one high‑profile downgrade. ^[48]

8. The Bigger Picture for GOOG Investors Right Now

Putting all of today’s news and recent developments together, Alphabet (GOOG) sits at an unusual crossroads:

What’s going right

• AI execution is impressing markets. Gemini 3’s strong reception and the rapid rollout of AI features across Search, YouTube and Workspace have moved the narrative from “catch‑up” to “clear contender.” ^[49]
• Infrastructure advantage is growing. Ironwood TPUs, Axion CPUs, multi‑billion‑dollar data‑center investments in Texas and Germany, and the Wiz acquisition all deepen Alphabet’s control over the AI stack. ^[50]
• Financial engine remains powerful. A $100+ billion quarter, strong margins, huge free cash flow and a fortress balance sheet give Alphabet unusual flexibility to spend aggressively while still returning capital via buybacks and dividends. ^[51]
• Buffett’s stake is a powerful signal. Berkshire’s investment has boosted confidence that Alphabet’s AI and cloud spending will eventually translate into durable, compounding earnings. ^[52]

Key risks and watch‑outs

• Valuation risk: After a 50%+ year, Alphabet trades at a premium to the broader market. Even if that premium is justified by growth and cash flow, it leaves less room for error if AI revenue ramps more slowly or macro conditions deteriorate. ^[53]
• Regulatory overhang: EU antitrust damages, the U.S. ad‑tech case, and ongoing scrutiny of its app store, search practices and data usage remain live issues that could lead to fines, product changes or structural remedies. ^[54]
• AI‑bubble risk: If investor enthusiasm for AI cools – or if a major safety, privacy or security incident hits – high‑multiple AI leaders like Alphabet could see sharp multiple compression. Pichai’s own warning that no company is insulated from an AI bubble burst is a notable note of caution. ^[55]

For now, the weight of the news flow on November 22, 2025 tilts bullish: Berkshire is in, institutions are net buyers, AI products are landing well with users and analysts, and Alphabet has just posted a record quarter. At the same time, today’s headlines also underline that GOOG is increasingly a high‑stakes, high‑capex, highly regulated AI utility – not the lightly scrutinized search company it once was.

Investors considering Alphabet stock should weigh that balance carefully against their own risk tolerance, time horizon and portfolio diversification needs. This article is for information and news analysis only and is not investment advice.

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